After a disappointing debate, Trump goes on the attack

NEW YORK — A defensive Mr Donald Trump lashed out at the debate moderator, complained about his microphone and threatened to make Mr Bill Clinton’s marital infidelity a campaign issue in a television appearance just hours after his first presidential debate with Mrs Hillary Clinton.

Defying conventions of civility and political common sense, Mr Trump levelled cutting personal criticism at a Miss Universe pageant winner, held up by Mrs Clinton on Tuesday’s debate as an example of her opponent’s disrespect for women.

Mr Trump insisted in the Fox News appearance that he had been right to disparage the beauty queen, Ms Alicia Machado, for her physique.

“She was the winner and she gained a massive amount of weight and it was a real problem,” said Mr Trump, who was the pageant’s executive producer at the time. “Not only that — her attitude. And we had a real problem with her.”

Mr Trump’s comments attacking Ms Machado recalled his frequent practice, during the Republican primaries and much of the general election campaign, of bickering harshly with political bystanders, sometimes savaging them in charged language that ended up alienating voters.

Trump aides considered it a sign of progress in recent weeks that the Republican nominee was more focused on criticising Mrs Clinton, and less prone to veering off into such self-destructive public feuds.

Going after Ms Machado may be especially tone deaf for Mr Trump, at a moment in the race when he is seeking to reverse voters’ ingrained negative views of his personality. Sixty per cent of Americans in an ABC News/Washington Post poll this month said they thought Mr Trump was biased against women and minorities, and Mrs Clinton has been airing a television commercial highlighting his history of caustic and graphic comments about women.

Mrs Clinton pressed her advantage early yesterday, telling reporters that Mr Trump had raised “offensive and off-putting” views that called into question his fitness for the presidency.

“The real point,” she said, “is about temperament and fitness and qualification to hold the most important, hardest job in the world.”

It will likely take a few days to measure any shift in the race after the candidates’ clash at Hofstra University on Long Island on Tuesday. Polls had shown the presidential race narrowing almost to a dead heat on the national level, with Mr Trump drawing close to Mrs Clinton in several swing states where she had long held an advantage.

But Mr Trump appeared thrown yesterday by his uneven performance the day before, offering a series of different explanations for the results.

On Fox, he cited “unfair questions” posed by the moderator, Mr Lester Holt of NBC News, and insinuated that someone might have tampered with his microphone.

Moving forward in his contest with Mrs Clinton, Mr Trump said he might “hit her harder,” perhaps raising the issue of “her husband’s women”.

Mrs Clinton was dismissive yesterday of Mr Trump’s barbs, shrugging off a question about his threat to go after her and her husband personally and his dismay about the microphone. “Anybody who complains about the microphone is not having a good night,” she said.

Mrs Clinton’s allies struck a similarly confident pose, roundly declaring victory in the debate after spending much of the last month on the defensive.

Mrs Clinton’s running mate, Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, likened Mr Trump to a reeling fighter, saying he was “leaning up against the ropes like a boxer who was about to go down for a TKO”.

“If you’re that rattled in a debate,” Mr Kaine said, “try being President.”